Winter Break

Benjamin and the girls had two weeks off of school for Christmas break. It was so nice to have everyone home. We tried to take advantage of the time off to go see some things, although we did do quite a bit of just hanging out at home, which I really enjoy.

We went to Kensington Palace, which was interesting. It's where Queen Victoria lived the first 18 years of her life, most of the time she was in just a few rooms. It was very fascinating to learn about her, she was quite amazing. This is also where Princess Diana lived and where Prince William, the Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince George live, although the papers rumored they were away for the Christmas holiday.
We also wandered a bit around Kensington Gardens, London seems to do a good job of making sure there is lots of green space. My favorite was the Peter Pan statue.  Also in the gardens is the Princess Diana memorial playground, and it was awesome. You are not allowed in without children and the kids loved it. It has a big pirate ship, Indian teepees and a rock crocodile. In the warm weather there is a water feature for them to play in, we may have to go back. There was also a whole section of musical play things, some you jump on, or bang on to make music. It was a lot of fun.

And no, I don't make my girls wear skirts, they do that on their own. It's making them wear jeans that is difficult.

Here's all of us in front of Kensington Palace. We don't get too many pictures with all of us.

Princess Diana wallpaper

Ben, the royal adviser.

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In front of Kensington Palace with statue of  Queen Victoria

Pirate ship entry

On the pirate ship

Indians

Life boat

Janie got brave enough to climb to the top of the mast

Jumping chimes

Peter Pan statue

Another day we went to Hyde Park's Winter Wonderland. During December they have carnival rides, an Ice Palace, Circus and Markets that could take up hours ( and enough of them you could get lost in, I know from personal experience, Luckily it was only me that was lost and not any kids.)  We went through the Ice Palace, which had lots of cool sculptures and we went to the circus! We had bought our tickets online, and we got there early so we decided just to wait there. Luckily, we got in line early and ended up sitting on the front row! It was very fun. They had acrobats, a juggler, a clown, and some tight rope walkers which were my favorite. They didn't use any nets or anything and did some pretty cool tricks. I didn't take many pictures that day so you'll have to use your imagination.

Ice sculptures

The temperature inside was - 8 degrees Celsius. Can you imagine anything so cold? It was more like 10 outside. (The conversion for you Fahrenheit people is 17 degrees and 50 degrees. I'm finding that London weather isn't nearly so dreary as Utah weather in spite of all the rain.)

Front row at the circus.

Circus, I've been asking Ben for years to take me.

All in all, a great holiday. Now its back to real life.